Page 85 of The Official Problem
He just nodded. “I’ll figure it out.”
“No, we’ll figure it out. I’ll drop out of school, get a full-time job. I’m sure they can set up some kind of payment plan.”
“Absolutely not.” He didn’t use his older-brother-knows-best voice often, but he was using it now. Matthieu wouldn’t let Julie make the same sacrifices that had been forced on him, even if he’d made them willingly. He’d made them so she wouldn’t have to.
“Matthieu.”
“No, Julie. I dropped out of school with less than eighteen credits left for my diploma. You graduate in May, and your semester’s already paid for. I’m not letting you throw that away to start working a few months early.”
“But…”
“We’re not discussing this further. Once you graduate and have a full-time, steady job, I’ll let you help with the repayments. Until then, you stay in school, and I won’t take a single penny from you.”
She rolled her eyes, but Matthieu knew he’d gotten through.
“Until then, just… try not to worry about it.”
Julie gave him a look that said,Easier said than done.
“Now, can I please drive you to Melissa’s to grab your stuff? You belong at home.”
“Fine. But after that, you need to go enjoy some time with that hunk of yours and let him pound you into next week.”
His sister was widely off base, but Matthieu wasn’t about to correct her. “You’re ridiculous. Let me get changed out of this monkey suit real quick, and then we can head out.”
THIRTY-ONE
KIERAN
Kieran should have left.
The door to Matthieu’s apartment clicked shut behind him, and he’d been seconds from heading downstairs. Then Julie’s voice drifted through the paper-thin wall, followed by Matthieu’s. Kieran edged closer, listening in on the whole conversation.
Just in case Matthieu needed him. The last time he’d really talked to Julie, she’d torn into him, leaving him a shell of the Matthieu Kieran knew. So he stayed, driven by a vague, protective instinct.
“Two hundred thousand dollars,” Matthieu had just said.
Kieran knew he was behind financially, knew the hospital bills were piling up. Still, two hundred thousand dollars? That was the sort of debt people didn’t recover from.
Matthieu’s voice sounded again through the wall. “…then we can head out.”
Shit. He had minutes to get out of the parking lot before Matthieu realized he’d been eavesdropping. He turned on his heel and jogged down the stairs. Luckily, he made it out of the parking lot unnoticed.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Matthieu didn’t have that.
They didn’t talk about money. But that night, when Matthieu had first shown up at his door, he’d said enough. Just a few days ago, Kieran had caught the look on Matthieu’s face as he shoved mail into the kitchen drawer, thinking Kieran hadn’t noticed.
He couldn’t afford that, even with Julie’s help.
Kieran could. He had twice that amount sitting in his bank account right now.
Cole had set him up with a financial advisor who handled most of his money through some kind of portfolio—investments Kieran didn’t even pretend to understand. But a large chunk still hit his account twice a month. He barely spent it.
It felt conceited to say two hundred thousand dollars meant nothing to him. It was still a heck of a lot of money, yet money he could spend without feeling it. What was the point in having it if he couldn’t use it to help the people he loved?
Kieran couldn’t imagine Matthieu willingly accepting that kind of money. He’d seen it in Matthieu’s eyes when he unboxed those skates—that quick internal battle before he finally gave in and said thank you. The skates had been a small thing, at least for Kieran. Taking this burden from Matthieu would be something else entirely. Something Matthieu would never agree to.
